Nightfall (1957 film)
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| Nightfall | |
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 Theatrical poster |
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| Directed by | Jacques Tourneur |
| Produced by | Ted Richmond |
| Written by | Story: David Goodis Screenplay: Stirling Silliphant |
| Starring | Aldo Ray Brian Keith |
| Music by | George Duning |
| Cinematography | Burnett Guffey |
| Editing by | William A. Lyon |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date(s) | January 23, 1957 (U.S.A.) |
| Running time | 78 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Nightfall (1957) is a black-and-white film noir directed by Jacques Tourneur. The film features Aldo Ray, Brian Keith, Anne Bancroft, among others. The low-budget film is remembered today for camera work by cinematographer Burnett Guffey. The film uses flashbacks as a device to tell the story, which was based on a 1947 novel by David Goodis.[1]
In the film, a commercial artist is hunted by the police for a murder he didn't commit and by criminals for stolen money he doesn't have.
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[edit] Plot
The film tells of commercial artist James Vanning (Aldo Ray) and his friend, Dr. Edward Gurston (Frank Albertson). They are on a hunting and fishing trip in Wyoming. They stop to help two men with car problems. The two men, John (Brian Keith) and Red (Rudy Bond), are bank robbers, fleeing with the loot and don't plan on leaving any witnesses. They murder Gurston using Vanning's hunting rifle, but though luck Vanning survives. He's knocked out knocked cold but still alive. He awakens to discover the stolen money, left behind by mistake, and runs with it from the returning hoods. He gets away but loses the bag in the blizzard that hits Wyoming.
[edit] Cast
- Aldo Ray as James Vanning
- Brian Keith as John
- Anne Bancroft as Marie Gardner
- Jocelyn Brando as Laura Fraser
- James Gregory as Ben Fraser
- Frank Albertson as Dr. Edward Gurston
- Rudy Bond as Red
[edit] Noir analysis
Film critic Alain Silver makes the case that even though the film's locations include bright snow cover landscapes the protagonist in the film is "typically noir." He writes, "Despite being made near the end of the cycle, the dilemma of Nightfall's protagonist is typically noir. Although he is a victim of several mischances, Vanning's paranoia compounds these problems significantly. Tourneur relegates those causal incidents to a flashback halfway through the film; but he does not allow them to be distorted by Vanning's point-of view. Rather, they reflect Vanning's struggle to comprehend how such violent but basically simple past occurrences have put him in such dangerous and complicated present predicament."[2]
Writer Spencer Selby called the film a "paranoid thriller which seems to be Tourneur's return to some of the territory he explored in Out of the Past."[3]
[edit] Critical reaction
Critic Dennis Schwartz liked the film and wrote, "Splendid adaptation by Stirling Silliphant of David Goodis's 1947 novel. Jacques Tourneur (Out of the Past and I Walked with a Zombie) gets the most out of this minor film noir about a paranoid man haunted by his past, who can't fully comprehend how he got into such a tight predicament where he's being pursued by both the law and two dangerous criminals. Burnett Guffey's brilliant composite photography adds chills to the already tense narrative. His exterior daytime shots of a wintry Wyoming landscape signify danger contrasted with the neon-lit dark city night streets that signify safety."[4]
Critic Jay Seaver gave the film a mixed review, writing, "Nightfall isn't worried about purity of genre; it occasionally threatens to to become an almost light-hearted caper movie...The storytelling is more than a bit cumbersome. Stirling Siliphant's script starts shaky, with Vanning making annoyingly vague comments about not being able to remember the source of his woes, and Marie's appearance in the somewhat low-class bar where she meets him almost seems out of character by the end. The direction is similarly uneven; Jacques Tourneur has some impressive items on his resumé but also a fair amount of mediocrity, and this one's somewhere in between. He gets us into and out of flashbacks smoothly, and knows when to sit back and let the actors do their thing. If the end fizzles, it might be less Tourneur's fault and more the environment he was working in - the finale really calls for a bit of blood spatter, but you just didn't get that in 1957, so the tension that has been built nicely doesn't quite have the release one might like."[5]
[edit] References
- ^ Nightfall at the Internet Movie Database.
- ^ Silver, Alain, and Elizabeth Ward, eds. Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style, film noir analysis by Alain Silver, page 206, 3rd edition, 1992. Woodstock, New York: The Overlook Press. ISBN 0-87951-479-5.
- ^ Selby, Spencer. Dark City: The Film Noir, film listed as film noir #280 on page 166, 1984. Jefferson, N.C. & London: McFarland Publishing. ISBN 0-89950-103-6.
- ^ Schwartz, Dennis. Ozus' World Movie Reviews, film review, March 24, 2005. Last accessed: January 22, 2008.
- ^ Seaver, Jay. eFilmCritic, film review, August 24, 2005. Last accessed: January 23, 2008.
[edit] External links
- Nightfall at the Internet Movie Database
- Nightfall at Allmovie
- Nightfall at the TCM Movie Database
- Nightfall at Film Noir of the Week by film critic Kim Morgan
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